29th December 2018

Blowin’ in the wind

How do coach supervisors respond to ethical dilemmas and tricky issues? Jonathan Passmore and I have been conducting research over the last few years in stages and we have just published a two-part series in Coaching at Work magazine with fellow researcher Marta Filipiak. Seven main themes emerged: sources of ethical dilemmas, obstacles in dealing with ethical dilemmas, personal resources, empathetic listening, safe practice, when to blow the whistle and increasing ethical capability. We believe ethical decision-making frameworks, like Jonathan’s and my APPEAR model can help, that training and continuous development to increase coaches’ exposure to ethical thinking is essential, along with taking a systemic perspective so that we place our work in the context of serving wider society.